 | Wavves |
Wavves Wavvves is a heavily distorted, extremely lo-fi deconstructed noise-punk record of awesomeness. Clocking in at just over 36 minutes, San Diego based Nathan Williams blasts through the 14 song record with an appropriate punk crispness. When describing this album to my sister I told her that it was lo-fi, heavily distorted guitars, heavily distorted vocals, noise-punk, with ultra simple lyrics that aren’t very deep. She responded that it sounded terrible. I assured her that this record was very good and despite her trepidations, just because something is lo-fi or distorted doesn’t make it bad, and in the combination that Williams has assembled these songs, it is very, very good. Follow the jump for the full review.
Wavvves is certainly an album of variety. Changes in tempo are common, with Weed Demon on the one side and Beach Demon on the really brisk side. Although the guitar is always lo-fi and heavily distorted, the tone to each song does have quite a bit of variation – especially when Williams gets into the stranger and most unsettled portions of the album, like on Goth Girls, Sun Opens My Eyes, Beach Goth and Killr Punx, Scary Demons. These songs aren’t simply unsettling, but fascinating, and bookend the more traditional guitar-heavy, poppier pieces extremely well.
This album does have some great guitar driven, cool songs. The latter portion of Beach Goth hits a great groove and rides it out to the end. Beach Demon and So Bored both have a more straightforward liner approach with a clear rhythm and structure. To The Dregs is a great example of Wavves ripping the lid off any limits to their noise and distortion – just throwing down an awesome fist of rock while not losing the song among too much distortion. Unlike, say, the Raveonettes latest, Wavvves never feels like noise for noise’s sake. The level of sound is always for a better purpose than for simply making your eardrums ring or to fill space, and Williams’ presentation of the noise is one thing that makes this record a standout and the Raveonettes’ Lust Lust Lust sort of a dud.
The purposeful disjointedness nature of the songs to each other, along with the elements of each song to themselves creates some fascinating contrasts. Listen to the deep vocals against the falsetto on Beach Goth – neither of which lay easily on top of the guitar at all, and you can begin to get a sense of how Williams plays the elements off each other while still making them work well together. The echoey nature of Killr Punx, Scary Demons is another prime example of just how unsettled Williams’ style can get on Wavvves which is also its brilliance, in a way. The simple nature of any individual element belies this album’s depth and complexity – both album-wide and on an individual song basis. Excellent work.
Wavves is currently on tour:
3/30 – Mercury Lounge – NY, NY
3/31 – Sneaky Dee’s – Toronto, ON
4/1 – Magic Stick – Detroit, MI
4/2 – The Brass Rail – Ft. Wayne, IN
4/3 – Empty Bottle – Chicago, IL
4/4 – Project Lounge – Milwaukee, WI
4/5 – 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN
4/6 – Aquarium – Fargo, ND
4/8 – the Northern – Olympia, WA
4/9 – The Funhouse – Seattle, WA
4/11 – Holocene – Holocene, OR
4/12 – DAM House – Davis, CA
4/13 – Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, CA
4/14 – Crepe Place – Santa Cruz, CA
4/15 – The Echo – LA, CA
4/17 – The Casbah – San Diego, CA
5/25 – Primavera Festival – Barcelona, Spain
